C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 106
January 23, 2013
No Dominion & publishing thoughts
So posted over on Facebook saying:
Apparently, 20p will become the new default price for ebooks as this is what Sony are doing by way of promotion, and the books featured are gobbling up market share. Can someone remind these nitwits of the old, tried and true saying “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is reality’?
Oh, wait, maybe this has nothing at all to do with books, readers or writers. Forcing Amazon to price match is costing Amazon millions. That reminds me of another saying. “When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers.’
Which made me think about NO DOMINION, which is doing pretty well in its first couple weeks of release. It’s been hanging out in the top 50ish of Amazon’s contemporary fantasy ratings for a fair amount of its release time. I’m hoping it’ll get up to the top 20, because that’s where it becomes self-sustaining for a while (if you want to mention it to your readers, the Kindle version is here… O.O), but the top 50 is very good.
Actually, it’s excellent when you take into account that I released the book at full price. , who is the person who suggested I try crowdfunding in the first place, said recently that he’d have suggested I set NO DOMINION at a lower, entry-level price to get up in the Amazon ranks. But since he didn’t suggest it and I didn’t even think of it, I didn’t. I just set it at full price. Between Amazon Kindle, the print edition and the Nook edition, it’s sold about 700 copies in the two weeks since it was released.
“I,” Bryant said, “would have been wrong.”
And so are the publishing companies. People will pay for a product as long as they can 1. get it easily*, and 2. believe it’ll be worth the price.
I mean, maybe I’m missing out on millions of new readers by doing it this way, but at least I don’t feel like I’m undervaluing my work.
And as Bryant also pointed out, pricing it at full price and still having the book in the top 50 or so Amazon rankings for contemporary fantasy means that the writers I’m hanging with–others in the top 50 who are at full price–are the big boys: Jim Butcher. Kim Harrison. Charlaine Harris. Kevin Hearne.
Everybody else in the top 50 right now is priced at under $5, and (without trying to sound self-aggrandizing, and indeed with the awareness that I may just not be Up enough on the latest releases), I don’t know any of their names. Obviously this wouldn’t be a good strategy if I was new to the field, but with my career so far, this approach seems to be working just fine.
And I really do believe that if the publishing industry wasn’t running around in such a panic that there’s a lot they could do to strengthen sales and break Amazon’s back. (Seriously, it’s like Napster happened in a separate universe from them.) They could:
- bundle an e-edition with the purchase of any print book
- release mass market and e-books first, then release the hardback several months later for collectors
- work together to create an alternate storefront to Amazon, followed by
- going in with ANYONE ELSE, Kobo or Nook or Sony whatever, to push that brand of DRM-free e-reader on the storefront
- a major advertising campaign about how books never run out of batteries/etc, featuring the new storefront, followed by
- ceasing to give Amazon deep discounts (which the publishing industry needs to do anyway, not just with Amazon)
They’re coming from behind, so it would require a hell of a lot of work, but it’s not impossible. And I recognize that speaking and acting as an individual, I can respond a great deal more quickly than the behemoth of the publishing industry…but at the same time, the publishing industry really is following the music industry’s mistakes slavishly. Looking toward where the music industry has gone could save them time and trouble.
But wait! What about pricing? Everybody knows that people won’t pay more than $.99 for content!
Well, first go up and re-read the first part of this blog about the NO DOMINION sales. Then bear in mind that a song is usually released for in the region of $.99, but if you buy every song on the album for that much, you’re paying anywhere from $12-20 for the album in most cases anyway. People *will* pay full price for digital material if they think it’s worth it. And I personally believe my stories are worth it, or else why would I even be doing this job in the first place?
Furthermore, it certainly appears readers also think my stories are worth it. As a rule, the only people who don’t seem to be sure are the publishing industry, which is just all messed up. There are much better ways for the publishing industry to break Amazon’s chokehold than cutting their own throats.
*I need to get it up via Smashwords. *sighs & adds something else to the to-do list…*
January 22, 2013
Bulwer-Lytton & Haiku contest winners!
Some of these are genuinely appalling. :)
The Bulwer-Lytton contest winners of MOUNTAIN ECHOES are:
Amy Bennett, for
As I tenderly ran my hands through Coyote’s thick, slightly damp fur, my searching fingertips brushed over several small raised imperfections, causing me to wonder if he had become an unfortunate host to a horde of parasitic dog fleas, (Ctenocephalides canis), whose fairer sex can lay 4,000 eggs each, which had me considering which style and hue of flea collar would best coordinate with his gorgeous 1934 Indian Chief motorcycle.
, for
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain not only fell in torrents, but splashed back up to cloud the vision of our heroine as she tromped through the streets (for it is in Seattle that our story begins), creating rainbow-hued runnels in the gutters and miniature ponds in the eddies of the corners.
Plumfan Rockwell, for
It was a bright and sunny day; the sun shone down in bright beams blinding Morrison-except at occasional intervals when the clouds, an unremarkable occurrence in Seattle, would skitter across her cosmic sphere, to the scene taking place below his office window.
Sandy Giden, for
Gary stood next to his taxi looking down the rain slicked street into a fog so thick that it turned the street lights into miniature pale moons partly covered by whispy clouds hoping that Cernnunous’ horde wouldn’t come riding out of it like a pack of armour clad hell hounds.
, for
In her thirty-sixth straight hour of being awake and trying to save Seattle’s Chinatown from being destroyed by a rampaging yaoguai, Jo suddenly realized that Morrison’s eyes were the same brilliant shade of blue as those jugs of watered-down washer fluid you could buy at the questionable run-down middle-of-nowhere gas stations that dotted the interstate here and there, the ones where you were never quite sure whether the clerks wanted to get your money and get you gone as soon as possible, or kidnap you and string you up in some kind of Oklahoma Chainsaw Massacre for being a nosy outsider prying into things you shouldn’t; it was such a distinctive color, she wondered why she’d never made the connection before.
, for
Jo walked, not too fast and not too slow, down the cobblestone sidewalk that was so mismatched it looked like the stones had just been cobbled together, as she made her way to the airport to fly home to a place where she no longer had a job because she had been gone for three months when she should have been gone but one, all the while blissfully unaware in her misery that by the end of the day (or by the next morning, at the very least) she would no longer be plain Joanne Walker but would again be weighted, occultly, with the appellation of Joanne Walkingstick (not that she would let anyone, even herself, call her by it), though it would be many a month before she would come to fully embrace her new kick-assedness.
, for
It was the worst of years, it was the best of years, except the normalcy in the rare moments between learning experiences, assignments, murder, magic, misconceptions about Muldoon, mingling with gods, ghosts, gathering spirit guides, driving Morrison’s crazy, out of body experiences, a few sword fights, some fur flying, and the undead, in other words adventures in growing into a new soul of two cultures.
(Yes, there are 7, not 6, because I gave away a couple extras over on FB in thanks to the people who came up with the contest ideas, so I thought I’d do an extra one here too. :))
Kristy Moen, for
Mountain Echoes are
Swift blowing winds over a
Bright white capped summit
Shannon O’Dea, for
everybody knows
old dogs cannot learn knew tricks
unless you’re Muldoon
Karl Kloeden, for
nʞıɐɥ sıɥʇ ʇsnɾ ɹo
uʍop ǝpısdn ǝɟıl ɹǝɥ pǝuɹnʇ puɐ
ǝʞoʍɐ ɔıƃɐɯ s,oſ
Deborah Blake, for
Joanne fights for Good
Against impossible odds
Gary has her back
Diane P. DesAutels, for
Joanne Walkingstick:
Her own past and other realms
This shaman remade
April Koenig, for
Watchful guardians
Coyote, Raven and Snake
Sleep girl, you are loved
Goodreads giveaway!
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Goodreads Book Giveaway
Mountain Echoes
by C.E. Murphy
Giveaway ends January 24, 2013.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
January 18, 2013
MOUNTAIN ECHOES give-away!
I got two boxes full of MOUNTAIN ECHOES today, so there is now a contest on!
I’m sure you’re all familiar with Bulwer-Lytton and the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. If you’re not, go read about it, I’m not going to explain.
The contest: write a Bulwer-Lytton sentence about a Walker Papers character. The best (or worst) six sentences will win a signed copy of MOUNTAIN ECHOES. Please post your responses at this journal entry!
You may only enter once. However, you may enter *each* of the contests I’m running once. Go check out my facebook page for the haiku contest, and next week I’ll post a Goodreads give-away after they’ve approved it.
Go forth, win! :) Contest ends Monday the 21st, evening-ish EST. Basically, when I say so. :)
January 9, 2013
NO DOMINION general release!
It is my absolute joy to inform you all that NO DOMINION is now available for general purchase!
Via Barnes & Noble, for your Nook!
Via Amazon, in print or for your Kindle!
NO DOMINION is a Walker Papers tie-in, mostly the result of my Kickstarter-gone-wild. It has seven short stories and one short(ish) novel. The last two stories take place after the end of the Walker Papers series, but I don’t consider them to have any spoilers in them. However, you should really, *really* have read up through RAVEN CALLS before you start reading NO DOMINION. The author feels *strongly* about this. *looks fierce*
NO DOMINION itself is a short novel about Gary Muldoon, Joanne’s septuagenarian sidekick. People have been asking me about Gary’s story since the series began, and partway through RAVEN CALLS, the opportunity to tell it leapt up and throttled me. I wrote it for my Kickstarter patrons, and now it’s available for everyone!
Recently widowed after nearly fifty years of marriage, Gary Muldoon had given up on adventure. Then shaman Joanne Walker climbed into the back seat of his cab, and since then, Gary has trifled with gods, met mystics, slain zombies and ridden with the Wild Hunt.
But now he must leave Joanne’s side to face a battle only he can win. Because as their long battle against a dark magic-user races toward its climax, it becomes clear that it was not illness that took Annie’s life, but their enemy’s long and deadly touch.
Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have…
NO DOMINION
A Walker Papers Collection
Now, NO DOMINION is a self-publishing venture. This means, sadly, that you will not be able to buy it in the bookstores. (I’ve talked about this with bookstore people, in fact. I can do a print copy which Lulu.com will make available *to* bookstores, but Lulu doesn’t give a deep enough discount on non-refundable books (which this would be) for bookstores to just go ahead and order it so it’ll be on the shelves. So it’s not that I’m neglecting that potential avenue, it’s just that basically it’s not available in any practical manner.)
You *can* order a print copy through Amazon, or buy an e-book version at Amazon or B&N. I’ll get it up on Smashwords relatively soon, but since I’ve only ever sold like six books through Smashwords it’s not a really high priority right now. :)
I would dearly, dearly appreciate it if anybody who has already read it felt moved to go write a review for Amazon and/or B&N.com, and I would equally appreciate any signal boost you felt like providing. The problem with self-publishing, even if you’re a known entity, is making people aware of the book, since it won’t be on the shelves for readers to just trip over.
Those links once more!
Via Barnes & Noble, for your Nook!
January 6, 2013
Recent Reads: ARCTIC RISING
I’ve just finished Tobias Buckell‘s absolutely terrific ARCTIC RISING, which is one of those rare books that I enjoyed so much that I dearly wish I’d written it, but am also not flailing with regret that I didn’t nor would ever be able to write it. Instead I just enjoyed the hell out of it and am chomping at the bit for the sequel.
It’s near-future SF, set after the melting of the Arctic ice cap. More accessible and adventure-oriented than Kim Stanley Robinson’s brilliant Science trilogy, it is exactly the kind of climate change book that I want to see on bestseller lists, getting international attention, and generating discussion about the world he’s portrayed and the futures we’re looking at.
That sounds very high-falutin’, so let me also say it this way: when the worrisome McGuffin was revealed, I actually gasped out loud. That’s how involved I was in the stakes Tobias had set up, and in the characters he’d developed. I couldn’t tell you the last time a book made me gasp like that. I not only liked the main character and the supporting cast very much, but *loved* the portrayal of the bad guy, whom I found utterly believable.
You all know climate change is a hot topic for me, having grown up in Alaska where the effects have been achingly visible. Tobias is Caribbean, and is, I suspect, similarly motivated on the topic: low-lying island countries, like Alaska, already seeing the effects of climate change. The future as he’s envisioned it seems painfully possible to me, for good and for ill. A very good book!
January 5, 2013
Teaser for MOUNTAIN ECHOES!
I’d meant to get it up a liiittle earlier in the year, but by the 5th isn’t bad!
The first chapter of MOUNTAIN ECHOES, Book Eight of the Walker Papers, is now available to read! MOUNTAIN ECHOES will be out in March 2013, woo hoo! :)
November 26, 2012
What’s in a name?
If you’ve been reading my blog for more than five minutes you’ve heard me talk about wanting to write a near-future SF trilogy around the subject of climate change. It’s a passion of mine, having grown up in Alaska, where the effects of climate change have been brutally visible during my lifetime.
One of the things stopping me–well, there are a few. One is the amount of work I feel I’d need to put in to do it right, and an inability to see how I can keep making a living while putting it together. I am not known for writing SF, and although I’m passionate about the topic and a good writer, I’m not sure a publisher would want to take the risk of handing over enough cash that I *could* work on something that big to the exclusion of other material. They might, if I put together a strong enough proposal, but in this case “a strong enough proposal” would be research, time and work intensive enough that I probably might as well write the first book entirely, which comes right back around to the making a living thing.
Another is that I’ve got girl cooties, which everybody knows means I can’t write SF.
I mean, my writer name is (not deliberately) gender-neutral, but it’s also associated with urban fantasy and girly covers. So I’m not strictly certain the gender neutrality would get me past the door, even though the name is neutral. I mean, I don’t particularly care if I changed my name to something else (presumably gender neutral) to write SF under, except for the irritating fact that it shouldn’t have to be that way.
It’s not just SF, a’course; it’s epic fantasy, too, in many ways. Not that there aren’t women being published in both, but they don’t seem to break through to the GRRM/Brooks/Goodkind/Jordan/Rothfuss/etc levels of recognition. I know … many. Let us say many. Many women fantasy novelists who say if they were starting over, they’d use a gender neutral name or a straight-out male one. I know many women SF novelists whose books have made a splash on entry, then largely have sunk without a trace.
I don’t know why it is, except we are told over and over again that Men Don’t Read Books By Women, and that Women Don’t Read SF (or comics). This is clearly nonsense, given how many people I know who run against that tide, but the rote repetition of lies is a popular way to make them true.
I don’t know how to fix it, either, because we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Writing under a male name is perpetuating the problem; writing under a female name apparently dooms women writers to obscurity…which perpetuates the problem.
Anyway, me being me, the discussion does make me want to say SOD THEM ALL I WILL WRITE NEAR-FUTURE CLIMATE CHANGE SF AND IT WILL BE *BRILLIANT* AND I WILL BE BELOVED–
–but I couldn’t tell you what name I would publish that brilliance under. :p
October 16, 2012
Baba Yaga’s Daughter update
For those of you who have ordered BABA YAGA’S DAUGHTER, an update:
First, if you’ve gotten an alarming message from Amazon about the book being cancelled or do you really still want it, fear not, this happens and SubPress is on top of it. The book is not cancelled, just a few weeks late.
Second, I’ve just talked to my editor there, who says the sample print has been checked and okayed, and that they should have copies in the warehouse next week, which means they should start shipping shortly after that!
So we apologize for the delays, but, y’know, you can’t rush perfection! Thanks for hanging in there patiently.
October 2, 2012
DICE, Part II
So right after we got to Dublin, a comics convention started up. Even the first year, which was held in a small cramped location, had a strangely good lineup of guests for a tiny con, and the 2nd or 3rd year they even had Jim Lee. This is because EVERYONE wants to come to Ireland. :) But things happened and the con disappeared for a while, and now it has returned with gusto. We had a great time, and I’m really looking forard to next year.
It being Ireland, and perhaps it being a convention, things got started late. An hour late, which made my complicated day considerably more complicated, but I had so much fun that nevermind that. :)
First panel was “Meet the Editors”, where Marvel editors Lauren Sankovitch and Jeanine Schaefer teamed up with Vertigo editor Mark Doyle to talk about What It Is Editors Do. They were funny and informative, although most of it wasn’t new information to me. Mark Doyle repeated the oft-heard truth that you need publication credits to get publication credits, but the difference in the comics industry is that making your own comics and self or web or whatever publishing them is fine, which is not so much true in book publications.
I then didn’t go to any more panels on Saturday, I think, because I was too busy fangirling at Kelly Sue Deconnick, who is writing the wonderful new Captain Marvel comic for Marvel, and meeting the creators of Roller Grrls, an upcoming comic I’m pretty excited about, and hanging with friends who were there, talking with artist PJ Holden, and standing in line to formally introduce myself as somebody who wanted to work for the Big Two to the editors.
Honestly, probably my favorite moment of the convention was standing in line for Mark Doyle, while a young man with an artist’s portfolio got his review. I couldn’t quite see the guy’s work, but Doyle was very enthusiastic about it, and at one point said, “I mean, you know this is good–” and then with the realization of one who has been in this situation before, said, “You know this is good, right?” much more seriously.
The guy seemed–I mean, I think he did know he was good, but being told repeatedly by editors seemed to overwhelm him a bit. And at one point Doyle asked if the artist would be interested in maybe doing some sample work, and the guy gave him such a “Ya *think*?” look that even from the back it made me laugh, and Doyle looked sheepish and amused. It was great. :)
Later in the weekend, when I’d sat down to talk with one of the Marvel people, the same artist went to talk to one of Marvel’s writers. The guy I was talking to asked if I’d excuse him for a minute*, and went to laud the artist’s talents. So that was pretty great, and really, I love seeing that kind of thing so much that even if I’d had an otherwise lousy weekend that would have made it. As it was, I’d had a great weekend and that made it all the better!
